Your mobile app is your school’s chance to boost parental engagement.
It’s a sad fact that teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep parents engaged with what’s going on at school.
Parents’ ‘go-go’ lifestyles mean they don’t have time to visit the school’s website for the latest news and announcements.
Hard copies of newsletters often get lost or thrown out.

What does this mean?

• Meetings with parents are missed
• Permission slips never get signed
• Children are dropped off when school is shut for training

Fortunately, the School Jotter mobile app is now bridging the gap between parents and schools and this is why it’s considered the best school mobile in the UK.
Free for parents to download via the App Store and Google Play, Jotter Mobile transformed the way schools communicate with parents.

The app features:

• Latest news and newsletters
• Contact (and be contacted by) individuals and groups of parents for free.
• Push notifications for urgent messages such as snow days
• Calendar for semester dates, meetings and events
• Hot Link – browse an external URL without leaving the app
• Contacts – useful numbers at your fingertips
• Maps – locate a campus or sports field

Even the so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ parent, who has low self-esteem and lacks the confidence to get involved, can at least know what’s going on.
This may eventually entice some to become more involved with their children’s education and school life.
Relying on parents to visit a school’s website for information is optimistic, as this can be time consuming and requires visiting several different pages, whereas with Jotter Mobile, everything can be accessed in moments.
Although Jotter Mobile is a stand-alone product, it works in synergy with our School Jotter website.
Not only does the app refresh automatically when the website is updated, parents can access photo galleries.
As lives get busier, the need for schools to have an app to act as a communications hub is greater than ever. It’s a great way to foster support and keep parents willingly engaged.
With hundreds on order, Webanywhere have already delivered over 1,000 School Jotter mobile apps – all beautifully designed to match a school’s brand and ethos. To date, our app has been used over 1,000,000 times.
Here’s what schools are saying:

“I think it’s great! Easy to use, can be accessed from everywhere. I have it on my phone and tablet. We’ve very happy with it. – St Joseph’s CPS Bradford
“Over a third of our parents use the app, and it is perfect for us because it’s so easy to use and manage.” – Old Sarum Primary School
“Thank goodness About time we have an app for holy family. It will make my life so much easier.well done!!”? – Holy Family CPS
“What a lovely app. Very informative and easy to navigate.” – Grange Park Primary School
“Great app.” – Drighlington Primary School

We were excited to interview our newest Marketing Intern, Wiktoria from Keighley’s Holy Family Catholic School. Although she has been with us for a short amount of time, we have had a blast getting to know her!
Wiktoria is an incredibly fast learner and has impressed us with her ability in completing tasks quickly and efficiently. She helped us publish content on our blog and organise an event that some of the biggest companies in Leeds will attend tomorrow. She is also learning how to build school websites with School Jotter.
We got a chance to interview Wiktoria, and are excited to introduce her to our readers!

Tell us something fun about you.
Hi, my name is Wiktoria Plata, I am 14 years old and I come from Poland. I live in Keighley with my younger sister and my parents. I am in Year 10 and go to Holy Family Catholic School.

What do you hope to learn by the end of the internship?

By the end of this internship, I hope to learn how Webanywhere works with and helps schools through education websites and apps.

What is your favourite thing to do outside of school?

Outside of school, I like to meet up with friends and do something interesting.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

In 5 years, I see myself at university studying a degree that will help me get a well-paid and helpful job.

What would be your ideal job?

My ideal job would be to do something that hopefully helps people.

What is your favourite book and why?

My favourite books are written by Michael Morpurgo, because his books are always adventurous and usually have a meaning behind them.

What kind of music do you like and who is your favourite artist and why?

I like listening to pop and sometimes some country music. My favourite artist is Sia because of the way she sings and writes her songs.

What a beautiful, honest lady. I had the pleasure of meeting Sophie a couple of months ago at our anti-bullying conference. Sophie was joined by her good friend Zara Holland, Tom Riodon the CEO of Leeds CC, Emma Kenny and Rob Faulkner, an e-safety expert.
I contacted Sophie via her Instagram account in January and asked her if she wanted to take part in a conference discussing the “impact of social media on young children, what can schools do?’’ She responded straight away stating that this was something she felt extremely passionate about.

To stand up in front of a room full of Headteachers must of been incredibly hard but she did it and was inspirational. I had no idea she was struggling so much. A smile can disguise anything and hers was magical.

Schools are facing a poisoned problem with social media and both Sophie and Zara had some answers. No one else is better informed, educated and knowledgable about social media. They spoke about going into schools and talking to the children. The room and everyone in it had a respect for these girls and it was then them who became the teachers.
Watch Sophie’s speech at the Elland Road event:

The full video of the event can be found here.
Cyber bullying is just bullying, plain and simple. Emma Kenny said “the only thing we have to offer is compassion, kindness and love”, Sophie had all three.
The seminar felt special at the time but it’s only now that I realise how much Sophie wanted to make a difference. Sophie, Thank-you so much for helping and making a difference in this battle with social media bullying. You will not be forgotten. The world wasn’t made for one as beautiful as you. X

You will not be forgotten, and neither will be your work to help others, we will continue in your memory until bullying stops.

Sophies slide on Types of Troll:

Talk to Samaritans:
Call 116 123 (this number is free to call)

Cyberbullying Resources

• Multimedia resources from Bullying UK
• A free ebook download
• Lesson plans, roadshows and resources from The Anti-Bullying Alliance
• Cyberbullying Views

Worried about a child?
Contact NSPCC’s trained helpline counsellors for 24/7 help, advice and support.
help@nspcc.org.uk
0808 800 5000

Webanywhere’s school mobile app, School Jotter, is trending on the Apple App Store as one of the best Education apps in the market.
School Jotter, a UK school mobile app has been trending at #16 for Education on the Apple app store. The app is increasingly gaining popularity thanks to its ability to connect primary school teachers with parents. School Jotter as the most downloaded school mobile app in the UK is also available in multiple markets including the USA, New Zealand, Australia and more.
The user friendly School Jotter mobile app became a hit with schools as they use it to contact parents and share their latest news, events and updates. Cool features such as push notifications, school calendars and instant communication with parents to name a few are included in this app.
Schools can contact and be contacted by individuals and groups of parents for free, reducing the amount spent on reprographics as school communications like Headteachers’ newsletters can be accessed via the app. With school budgets being reduced, the app helps schools to be more efficient and save time and money.

Currently, there are over 100,000 people using it in the UK making it the most popular school website and communications mobile app in the country. On top of that, School Jotter has received over 100 of 5-star reviews from parents on Google Play describing it as the best method of communication between school and parent.
“Best form of communication when you don’t always get letter on time from the kids, the calendar is fab!” a user wrote.
“Much easier than trying to keep on top of letter that teachers stick in the kids school bags.” said another user.
The School Jotter mobile app has the ability to automatically sync with a school website, meaning this is quick, easy to implement and can transform parental engagement. Using the app is so simple that even the least tech-savvy teachers can update it.
As Ofsted is becoming more and more focused on parental communication and engagement, the School Jotter app makes sure schools effectively meet the requirements that helps them get an outstanding rating.
This application is built by Webanywhere and is part of the School Jotter suite of products. To find out more visit https://www.schooljotter.com/ or call them on 0113 320 0750.

With the introduction of Amazon’s Alexa cloud based voice service, a whole world of interactivity between voice and technology has been opened. The key question for me however is; can we use the Amazon Alexa skills kit within schools.
With Alexa, you can build natural voice experiences that offer users a more interactive way to interact with the technology they use everyday. Using the Alexa skills kit you can add a usable skill to the Amazon Alexa device, for example, you could ask it to recite a school calendar date, or a parent could use it to monitor a child’s homework.
So how could Alexa be used within your school?

Head Teachers Blog

A Headteacher could use Alexa to create and curate a headteachers blog. From this, they would be able to do weekly updates or even daily updates on the progress of the school giving praise to children and inviting parents into the school making them far more involved.
We all know how busy parents are and we all know how busy headteachers are within a school. Using Alexa would be a quick and easy way to interact with parents without intruding on their already very busy lifestyles. Parents will be able to listen to the weekly or daily update from your school, while carrying out their other daily chores, not hindering they’re already very busy schedule. Headteachers or school Communications Officers will be able to use voice messenger apps like Sound Branch to leave brief audio notes on what is happening that day. Parents will be far more engaged with the goings on within the school and a lot less questions would be asked relating to a child’s daily activity.

School Calendar

In the future, a schools calendar will have the ability to be accessed via voice communication. Once the schools calendar has been synced with the audio technology any parent will have the ability to ask there smart speaker about upcoming events at the school. This can save the parents lots of time having to check an online web based calendar. Imaging asking a smart speaker when the next school football game was and getting an accurate response? This would dramatically reduce the time searching online calendars and ensure events are not missed.
iSAMS calendar integration with Alexa means parents can get audio notes from the school about what is going on, without any members of staff having to even get their phones or laptops out to record a single thing.
This service would be free of charge to any parent once that have a smart speaker at home at the school and would interface with any smart speaker on the market. As this technology becomes more prominent in society, more parents will rely on this form of communication. Some devices start from as cheap as £20 so it won’t exclude any demographic. The school would be charged a licensing fee based on the number of users which will allow even the smallest of schools to get this service.
Various providers of learning platforms in schools are working on integrating with smart speakers which will be used in class to help teachers workload and improve pupil performance. Webanywhere CEO, Sean Gilligan said: “We are reaching an inflection point where are Alexa echo and Google assistant are becoming quite prevalent both of mobile phones and smart speakers.”
He added “This new voice technology brings a multitude of possibilities to schools parents and children in terms of teaching and learning and communication.”

Listen to Sean Gilligan’s podcasts on this topic:

1. Alexa Skills for Schools
2. 10 Reasons to use Sound Branch and Voice Technology

Here at Webanywhere, we offer bespoke school web design and development services that provide schools with unique and highly functional websites, which are scalable, tailored to their needs, and are intended to offer the best user experience possible.
If your target is to generate a strong and unforgettable online brand image for your school, there is a plethora of benefits that come from investing in a bespoke school website.
In this article, we’ll discuss why a bespoke web design offers a more sustainable, professional advantage to your school in the long term.

Superiority Of Custom School Web Design

Your school website needs a personality, and designers will help you come up with a personalised solution, from start to finish. Important factors to consider include navigation, ease of use, layout, graphics and a color scheme.
Since a custom design site is built specifically for your needs, you gain more independence and control. You won’t have to worry about trying to adapt it to suit your purposes as you would with a standard school web design. As long as you are working with a good design team, they will be around to provide ongoing support.

Responsive Design

Responsive websites are designed to give users the best possible experience across all modern computers, tablets, smartphones, and internet ready devices.
In the last decade, mobile data traffic has increased 3000%, this is expected to increase by over 400% by 2021.
Think of the amount of times that you check your phone each day… How often do you use your phone to Google something or check on social media?
80% of internet user own a smartphone and there are more mobile users than desktop users. People have much shorter attention spans and will not give a website a second chance if it has a slow load time or will not display properly on their mobile device. Why should they? We live in a consumer savvy society in which people are used to online instant gratification thanks to technology.
On average, we spend three hours a day glued to our smartphones. A recent Huffington Post study showed that responsive websites saw a 37% increase in unique visitors and a 50% increase in time people spend on pages.

SSL Certificates are a Must

Whenever you use the internet, you are sharing packets of information. This might be something seemingly small, like a request for the contents of a website to be sent to your browser. It might be something more important, like details of a bank card. Every time you click on a link or fill in a form, you share a little bit of information and you get a bit back.
For websites without SSL certification, this information is not encoded. If someone intercepts it then they can read the information you have sent. The growth of wireless networks and mobile browsing has created more possibilities for interception than ever before.
SSL is important because it lets people use your website more safely. Those packets of information, however big or small, can’t be read if they are intercepted.
This has a lot of implications for a school website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimization or SEO in short, is a set of rules that can be followed by website owners to optimize their websites for search engines and thus improve their search engine rankings. For example, if a parent searches for your school on Google you want your website to appear first in search results.

1. To make sure this happens, just follow these steps:
2. Check your site’s health on Google Search Console.
3. Submit your sitemap to Google.
4. Take a good look at your title tags.
5. Make sure your meta descriptions are snappy and engaging.
6. Check for keyword cannibalisation.
7. Claim your Google My Business listing.
8. Link to high-authority websites.
9. Share your knowledge in blog posts.
10. Add alt tags to your images. Above all, focus on search intent and user experience.

Support and Security

Ensuring that you keep all software up to date is crucial in keeping your school website secure. This software includes the server operating system and also any CMS or forum software that is used on your site. Hackers can work their way into your website and cause trouble through outdated software.
Your web hosting company should take care of your operating system security updates.
It’s very important to use strong passwords for both your server and website admin areas. It’s equally as important to ask your web users to ensure that their passwords are strong. This will help them to protect the security of their accounts.
If you allow users to upload files to your website, it can be a big website security risk, even if it’s simply to change their avatar. The risk is that any file uploaded however innocent it may look, could contain a script that when executed on your server completely opens up your website.

The Bottom Line

So a bespoke school website should have a unique and true responsive design – not emulated. You will need an expert development and design team, such as Webanywhere, to support and assist you with this.
True scalability and the ability to integrate any online technology (as it becomes available) are a must as well as security from common vulnerabilities.
Most importantly, you need an optimised solution that is light, fast and responsive, and of course good value for money.

This week we were excited to interview our Marketing Intern, Aaron from Ermysted’s Grammar School. Although he has been with us for a short amount of time, we have had a blast getting to know him!
Aaron is an incredibly fast learner, and has impressed us with his perseverance in completing tasks quickly. He was able to write marketing content and is currently working on data management.
We got a chance to interview Aaron, and are excited to introduce him to our readers!

Tell us something fun about you.

I like playing guitar and enjoy playing badminton.

What do you hope to learn by the end of the internship?

I want to be able to leave this internship with as much knowledge of this field as I can. This will then make my prospects into the future ever so slightly clearer.

What is your favourite thing to do outside of school?

I do enjoy playing badminton and I try my best to read books.

Do you have an idea of what your next steps will be after the internship, if so, what are they?

I might look into the website design field later in my future however currently I have no set plans.

What would be your ideal job?

As I said I don’t have current plans for the future but I would definitely want a job which I have a passion for.

What is your favourite book and why?

It will probably have to be the Black Prism by Brent Weeks because it has a great storyline filled with many plot twists and loose ends.

What is your dream company to work for and why?

I would love to work for a big tech company like SAMSUNG or Apple because I will then be able to see the latest technology that’s going to come out, it will give me a glimpse into the future. Also, the idea of free prototypes is very appealing.

Thank you for reading our internship interview with Aaron Kannenkeril!

As a school, your school web design is your first impression. That means it’s also where your conversion opportunity lies – if you want to attract new parents/guardians and increase enrollment, having a remarkable website is the best place to start.
There’s nothing wrong with having a school website that looks similar to others, but you need to stand out among your competitors in some way. This is why in this article we’ll be discussing the 2018 trends of school web design.

The key components of a school website

To make your school website complete and perfect in 2018, you need the following key components.

• Unique and eye catching design
• Ofsted requirements (Download a checklist here.)
• GDPR compliance
• Responsive mobile friendly web pages
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)
• Contact page with an email form
• Map showing your location
• Availability and Booking system
• High quality hosting

Each website is unique, but the successful ones generally follow a winning formula that contains the above elements.

Directing visitors towards the most important bits

Understanding influential visual cues will allow you to come up with a persuasive design that guides parents’ eye flow for maximum conversions.
Start with prioritising your website goals for a good visual hierarchy. List key points that visitors want to see on the school website. Then, prioritise and arrange them according to their visual importance.
You can use two types of directional cues to help you direct visitors towards the most important bits. Explicit cues take the form of arrows or lines while implicit cues use imagery to subtly direct your prospect’s gaze.

The principle of contrast

Contrast is defined as the difference between two or more elements. It creates visual interest and directs the attention of the user. Here’s an example of a school website that uses contrast.
If all of the elements on a school web page were the same in style and appearance there would be no organisation or hierarchy and the content would be nearly impossible to digest.
This makes contrast an essential part of effective school web design. It takes practice to learn and create the right amount of contrast in your designs but you can start by studying the work of talented designers to see how they use contrast.

Use User Stories to Build Your Website

A user story is a very short story – usually, about one sentence long, that describes something that the user wants to accomplish by using a service.
A good user story should be simple, engaging and accessible to a range of audiences, for example, young parents to old parents.
Stories can be written, drawn, spoken, or recorded. They are a powerful tool throughout multiple stages of the design process and can help persuade your audience.

Less can sometimes be more

Minimal web design doesn’t compromise your creative cutting edge. Your website doesn’t have to be too cluttered or glossy.
Visitors value a minimalist interface when navigating your school website as well as your social media pages.
Apply minimalist principles to make your school web design attractive and effective with fewer elements, simplifying and improving users’ online interactions. Check out examples here.

Implementing psychological motivators

Having a complete understanding of your audience will help you trigger the desired behaviour and increase enrollment.
There are some motivating factors that drive behaviour or key interactions on your school website. For example, the motivation analysis of your audience might reveal that parents in your area are curious, young and intelligent.
Be smart and create relevant content for your audience on your website. This is how you will convince them to choose your school over other schools in the area.

Responsiveness is key to a conversion centered design

Responsive school web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation.
As the spectrum of screen sizes and resolutions is widening every day, creating a different version of a school website that targets each individual device is not practical. The solution is a responsive web design for your school.
The number of users web browsing on mobile devices increases by 25% every year and mobile is the number one choice of device for accessing the Internet and social media.
With a responsive school web design, you will enable people using multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, desktops) to view your website properly.

Try before you buy

There are many school web design providers that allow schools to test out websites for free before deciding whether they want to pay for them. With School Jotter, you can start a free trial for 15 days!
Buying a website before trying it can be a big mistake that will affect your budget and the school community.

If you are after an outstanding school website, Webanywhere can help you using our School Jotter website builder. Join over 4,000 schools in the UK that use School Jotter websites, mobile apps and educational software.

The world of videography is changing rapidly with the introduction of affordable drones in the market. Their ability to carry HD cameras and fly over inaccessible areas makes them ideal for capturing amazing photos and videos. Total drone unit sales climbed to 2.2 million worldwide in 2017, and revenue surged 36% to $4.5 billion, according to research firm Gartner.
You have probably seen websites that already use drone footage on their homepage. This is becoming a trend now with more and more website owners being able to afford such unique and stunning graphics.
The most obvious advantage of a homepage with drone footage is that it grabs people’s attention. If you are a school looking to attract parents with your website there’s nothing you could add to your page that is more attractive than showing video footage of your school facilities and students playing, exercising or studying.

Adding Drone Footage to your Homepage

Drone footage is extremely customizable. If you use a school website provider that has their own drone, you have the opportunity to incorporate exactly the kind of footage you need for your school. You can tailor the material you get to your school’s brand, or your school website provider can do this for you.
If you are planning to purchase a drone for your school to create videos, you will need to get a drone licence from a CAA approved provider.

How to tell a story with your drone footage

Using drone footage is an ideal way to tell a unique story about your school. As you probably know stories usually follow the simple structure of: beginning – middle – end. Try and think of this structure in terms of daily school life. What do parents look for in a primary school? You should use this insight and respond to them with the right video shots. This will help you tell a story that parents can empathise with. It is the emotion within these stories that will resonate with the school community.

Examples of school websites using drone footage

St Margaret Ward Catholic Primary and Hawksworth Primary School are two of the first schools in the UK to use drone footage for their homepages. Webanywhere created the two websites using the leading school website builder, School Jotter.

As a result, the two websites attract more visitors and make the school community proud.
With a School Jotter website, it is easy to embed drone footage to your homepage without knowing how to code. School Jotter is known to be one of the easiest website builders to use and this is why more than 4,000 schools in the UK have School Jotter websites and mobile apps.

Webanywhere can help you create quality aerial footage of your school in the UK. We are known for our creativity, technical skills, and experience. Check out an example of a school website we recently created using drone footage and please feel free to contact us to discuss your next project. We look forward to hearing from you!

Transcript:

1.
EdTech is big business
“Investors state around 8.15 billion dollars in education technology in 2017 so EdTech is big business.”
2.
$9.5 billion EdTech market is 2018 with growth in China
“China has the world’s biggest market for school-aged children and it predicted 9.5 billion dollars will be spent in 2018 in Edtech.”
3.
18% year on year growth for EdTech
“Overall the rate of growth in the EdTech market is 18% year on year and the total global market is said to be worth 130 billion dollars.”
4.
Apple to challenge Google’s dominance of Education
“In order to challenge Google’s dominance of education Apple has just introduced a low-cost iPad with hopes of muscling its way back into schools.”

5.
200GB of free iCloud Storage for Education
“Alongside the introduction of low cost iPads, Apple is also offering 200gb of free iCloud storage for those in the education system.”
6.
Chromebooks vs iPads costings
“Last low-cost iPads at £212 or $299 Chromebook is still only $150 to buy.”
7.
Imbalance between the Tech and Education issues in EdTech
“Quite often the frustration from teachers in the EdTech market is that there’s more focus on the Tech than on the Education side of the coin.”
8.
83% of the market is dominated by Google, Microsoft and Apple
“Presently the EdTech market is dominated by Google, Microsoft and Apple with 83% market share what’s needed is new innovative companies coming into the market.”
9.
Learning Analytics, AI, augmented and virtual reality are trends to follow in EdTech
“Currently there is a shift away from tablets style kit to augmented and virtual reality tools artificial intelligence and learning Analytics.”
10.
Technology to make teaching easier
“Education technology needs to be carefully deployed to make teaching easier more efficient and more effective.”
11.
Technology will not replace the Teacher
“And a final word is that the technology will not replace the teacher the technology is merely the enabler to accelerate learning.”